Heroes of the Storm Murky Guide

Heroes of the Storm Murky Guide by Bobobaju

I’ve been playing Murky and he is far better than people give him credit for. Unfortunately everyone is using him in the same method just trying to backdoor and siege. This is not where Murky shines. This game is about team fights and having value within them. I’ve never written a guide before, and I’m not a pro at HotS, but I’ll do my best to outline why I consistently have the highest player damage and siege damage output in my matches.

The Build

Tier 1: Bigger Slime

Tier 2: Gathering Power

Tier 3: Slimy End

Tier 4: March of the Murlocs

Tier 5: Slime Advantage

Tier 6: Master of Slime

Tier 7: Never-Ending Murlocs

The Abilities

Q: Slime – This is your bread and butter damage dealing here. It slows those affected and deals damage over time. It has a four second cooldown and the poison damage stacks with multiple applications. It also illuminates players while they’re poisoned.

W: Pufferfish – Drops a bomb that eventually blows up and does some significant damage. It has health and can be killed by other players.

E: Safety Bubble – You become invulnerable for a very long 2 seconds. You can do nothing but move while bubbled. While bubbled you can also move through movement impairing effects like the WD’s zombie walls. 14 second cooldown.

R: March Of Murlocs – Massive stacking poison damage and a stacking slow. 100 second CD. The cooldown is long and should be saved for the right time, but the effectiveness of this move is incredible. Push to create situations to use this as often as possible.

D: Spawn Egg – Spawn an egg that you will spawn from after 5 seconds when you die. Murky only really dies when he is killed while his egg is destroyed. Deaths that respawn at the egg only give 25% xp to the other team.

How to Play Murky

Egg Placement

First things first you need to find a good spot for your egg. You want Murky to be able to get back into the thick of things as quick as possible but you also need to make sure the egg is safe. We picked Gathering Power for our Tier 2 talent which is going to increase our damage output significantly if you keep the stack maxed out. This means you need to make sure your egg is not broken as your Gathering Power stacks will only reset if you die while your egg is broken. I recommend keeping your egg near the first Keep in a middle lane. If your opponent is making progress on the wall near your egg you should move it back. It should be noted that your egg will take damage from AOE siege effects like those of the siege giants and the cannons in Blackheart’s Bay, so it shouldn’t be placed too close to structures. Your egg placement is also a fine mobility tool. It’s often quicker to kill yourself with a Merc pack and Spawn on your egg than to run back. Keep your egg out of danger and move it all the way back to your base if needed. The damage increase from Gathering Power is key to dealing effective damage.

How to Die in the Right Way Murky is made to die. We need to make that work as best for us as possible. Do not be afraid to get yourself killed. This is all about dealing as much damage as quickly and frequently as possible.

Fighting other Players in 1v1/Lane Environments– Open with Slime. Do your best to stay near the player and dealing basic damage for approx 2 seconds then use Safety Bubble and keep close. When your Safety Bubble expires use another Slime. You’ll probably die at this point and if you stayed close you’ll deal another death Slime to the player. This may not seem like much but on the average assassin this will generally take about half their health. With your egg nearby you can get back on them fast and continue to lower their health. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re not actually downing someone but, you’re burning through their mana and health and setting up your assassins for easy kills.

You can often get 1v1 kills on assassins who try to run away instead of killing you. Three Slimes and some auto-attacks will kill most assassins end game.

An important note to this is that your constant application of pressure should prevent your opponents from ever being able to enter a teamfight at full health/mana and this means a lot.

Teamfighting This is what Murky is really useful for, but you need to be able to effectively utilize both his damage capabilities and his unique utilities. He can effectively open a team fight by moving in while invulnerable with his Safety Bubble before using Slime and his death Slime to slow and significantly damage the opposing team. Most significantly, though, he plays an important role in finding those extra seconds for his teammates. This helps in both escapes and chases. Use his Slime to slow fleeing players. I will regularly see a teammate being chased down by the enemy team. A well timed Slime slows the enemy and more often than not, they all turn their attention to you instead of your fleeing teammate. You die, but they get a clean escape. Your teammate’s life is always worth more than yours. While we’re talking about those few extra seconds, Murky is awesome at just getting in the way. Position yourself well to make opposing players spend those extra couple steps to get where they need to go whether chasing or escaping. Always be as distracting as possible. If you’re opponents are hitting you then they aren’t hitting your friends. If they aren’t hitting you then make sure you’re dealing enough damage to make them regret it.

Teamfights and March of the Murlocs A single well placed March of the Murlocs will end a teamfight decisively. Try to flank your enemies and send in the Murlocs from behind them. This makes their escape far more difficult. The damage here is more than enough to kill a player and the slow is massive if they don’t get out of the way in time. This move can win or lose a game for you so learn to use it well.

Batting Clean-up Your team will lose some teamfights, but one big plus side to Murky getting back to the fight quickly is that he can clean up one or two of those players left on the other team with almost no health left.

When to use Pufferfish I only use this in PvP when both Slime and Safety Bubble are on CD. It’s effective against creeps. Although late game a single slime can kill an entire group of creeps. Toss it out at towers, walls, and keeps. The exact limit of its range can deal damage to targets while keeping you out of the range of towers. If you have an opportunity to close the range on a tower or keep without being hit then your slime is and auto-attack is going to do far more siege damage than your fish.

Other times for March of the Murlocs You can use this move for siege damage, but I recommend only doing so when you know that using it will have a significant effect (i.e. ending the game). It is far more useful in teamfights. It’s also very useful when opponents are distracted by map objectives. I’ve used this move 3v1 while the other team is trying to kill my Golem in the Haunted Mines and gotten 3 kills out of it more than once.

Merc Camps Murky should NEVER solo a camp. He can probably solo some siege giants, but he’ll almost always be close to death with all his moves on CD by the end of it. Any opposing player can comfortable kill you and take the camp. Feel free to support teammates in clearing camps and taking some of the damage from the mercs instead of your friendly and softer assassins like Nova.

Killing Enemy Siege Giants Drop your pufferfish at their feet, run around them in circles using slime. They should die fairly quick and continuing to move should make their rock throws miss you.

Final Notes I’ve probably forgotten something, but the most important thing with Murky is to keep on the opposing players. Harass them constantly. Everything else is secondary to this.